To Glam's continued delight, more kissing sessions happen on the following days (when they're feeling like a boy). They haven't met her parents as her official boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever yet, and don't mind it too much.

News about Purity's escape surprises exactly no one, but the Protectorate's reputation suffers a blow because of the attack; after all, the heroes were beaten on their home turf. The PHO forums are abuzz, though rumors of Glam's death at the hands of Hookwolf (probably started by same) prove largely unfounded.

And Glam really should get to their webisodes and start building a steadier rep. And that's (one of the reasons) why they're in Lorica's workshop a few days later.

"So what should I do? I haven't posted anything since Purity, should probably make this more of a habit."

"Yes we do. If your unstoppable force meets their unstoppable force for all we know the result is 'the fight goes on until she squints and in the meanwhile there's a crater where some innocent Midwestern farm town used to be'. But if you can produce tame Siberians on demand you just jumped ridiculously in Endbringer-related combat effectiveness, fuck guns you have a Siberian just have her go give them a hug."

"Well, I mean, if I can up and believe a Siberian copy into existence there's nothing saying I can't believe something better than the Siberian into existence. Unless the Siberian's the very top of what's possible when it comes to unstoppable forces and immovable objects. But in any case, yeah, Siberian hugs."

"So I don't ever, ever let her know where my real self is. I mean, there really is no reason why I would, even the binoculars are too large a concession, I could watch what the shoulderbot perceives from a secure, remote location while a copy has all my powers and then some because I can actually perceive them."

"Well... maybe I make something that's supposed to do a thing, like not a floating ping-pong ball but maybe something like a remote-controlled toy car or something, and then we tell someone else what it's supposed to do while I'm not around nor mentioned at any point, and then we see if their being around makes it do whatever-it-is better?"

"Do you have to know how heavy it is? If it's a box filled with parts or something and I know how heavy it is but you don't, does that mean you can't get your bot to lift it, or do we need to do something more complicated?"

"Well, like you said earlier, it's subverbal. I'm pretty sure if I don't actually know how heavy it is, how heavy I expect it to be will have a role to play there. Not a simple role, though, because I will also be taking that fact into consideration, there'll be a short feedback loop."